Defense Briefing Wednesday

Automatic defense spending cuts set to begin Friday will hurt military families, morale and readiness in addition to the ability to recruit an all-volunteer force in the future, Pentagon chiefs told Congress on Tuesday. – Washington Times

The Navy is denying speculation that it has delayed the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman to the Middle East in order to create “drama” over defense spending cuts. – Washington Times

44 on Tuesday traveled to a Navy shipyard in Newport News, Va., to argue allowing $85 billion in spending cuts to be triggered was “not smart” and would inflict a “self-inflicted wound” on the economy. – The Hill

Days before the March 1 deadline, Senate Republicans are circulating a draft bill that would cancel $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and instead turn over authority to 44 to achieve the same level of savings under a plan to be filed by March 8. – Politico

Senate Republicans were deeply divided Tuesday over a sequester replacement bill that would give 44 more flexibility to manage the looming $85 billion in cuts. – The Hill’s On the Money

When war comes down to boots on the ground, the Army’s greatest asset is its people. But in fiscal terms people are also its greatest liability. And now some procedural peculiarities of the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, set to start on Friday, will make personnel costs much harder to handle in ways that could erode readiness, retention, and morale. – AOL Defense

In a remarkably non-partisan moment amidst the current strife over budget cuts and Chuck Hagel, Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary and 41’s Chief of Naval Operations told a Republican-helmed committee that the Navy’s real problem was not the administration’s budget but decades of creeping bureaucracy that have eaten every budget’s buying power. – AOL Defense

The head of the nation’s largest veterans’ group said Tuesday that Washington is failing troops and veterans. – Military Times

The official theme was “Airmen, Mission and Innovation.” But at last week’s Air Warfare Symposium, put on by the Air Force Association (AFA), it may as well have been “Sequestration and Panic.” – Defense News

U.S. spy satellites circle the globe constantly, pinpointing tanks, radar stations and troops on the move. But the most recent images don’t reach the people who need it urgently: U.S. pilots flying in combat zones. The Air Force is trying to change that with the Joint Integration of Nationally Derived Information. – Defense News

The billions of dollars in defense budget cuts scheduled to begin at the end of the week will have a swift and severe impact on military readiness and Congress needs to take fast action to stop them, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday in an 11th hour bid to keep the reductions from going into effect. – Associated Press

Nonproliferation

A top Energy Department official last week said Taiwan’s recent willingness to incorporate a strict nonproliferation pledge in an upcoming renewal of its nuclear trade pact with the United States should not be seen as a prototype for future atomic cooperation agreements elsewhere around the globe. – Global Security Newswire

The War

The recent ouster of a several U.S. special operations teams from Afghanistan could be the beginning of increased restrictions against American troops that may end up putting U.S. lives at risk, according to a top House Republican. – DEFCON Hill

Even charities that have made an organizational decision to support jihadi causes will no doubt do some legitimate — perhaps even praiseworthy — work. But there is a dark side to these groups: They are making it possible for terrorist organizations to provide social services, thus increasing the base of support for their deadly work. As the United States learned in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this dark side must be taken seriously. – Foreign Policy

NATO

NATO coalition said Tuesday that it had discovered a clerical error in its reporting and that the number of enemy-initiated attacks — defined as attacks with guns, mortars, rockets or improvised explosive devices — remained constant from 2011 to 2012. – New York Times